8B
by Norick Madcaskae
Summary: You were the sole survivor of a terrible accident, Mr. Prower.


So there I stood, staring into the lit window of the apartment where I lived. Three stories up and waiting in the first room to the left of the stairs. The only room with a window that looked out over the city. The only window I really enjoyed to the extent it required.

I could hear the noises from here and I could make out the shadows almost as easily. As if it were all happening in front of me. The very future of our selves and lives was on the line and I wouldn't move, knowing full well what was coming from all angles. The one and only thing I didn't truly know at this point was whether or not I needed to do what I wanted to do, what I felt needed to happen.

No one tells you what you can do when it's worth more than a penny of your time.

Here I could know whatever happened, good or bad. Here I knew the lives of all those around me, from the people who lived across the street to those in the apartment building on the other side of town. And from here, I could even see the little farms.

"Just go in there."

I shook my head at the command. I knew what would happen then. I could feel the heat bearing down on me and anyone else involved. I needed to keep my cool, regardless of how I really felt. That's what society demands of you. That's all that society demands of you.

Tonight, however, society didn't matter.

My hands reach into my pockets. They were like straight jackets for me. Traps in which I could hide all my fears, my emotions and even my great sense of humor. A colorful combination of carnage, waiting to be set free from the imprisonment. But I couldn't. I wouldn't.

"Don't do this to yourself. Just go in there."

That voice again; that same grated, cracked voice. The only thing standing between me and what is, undoubtedly a tragic fate. One that only I know exists in the sands of time, one that only I can do anything about. Satisfy lusting rage or suffer deadly sadness.

Simply put, friends; someone is going to die tonight. Whether it's me or the person in apartment 8B, on the third floor of the Harland Times apartment building didn't matter. It rarely ever does. Or…so I've read.

I lack the technical knowledge of all things sacred to praise any name in or from the heavens at this point. I'm far too concerned with what's happening in front of me. Right here, right now, in the process of.

"If you don't go, you know what'll happen," says the voice once again. It's almost a snide remark, a comment filled with oozing sarcasm and a dried, putrid smell. And somehow I like it. The stench makes this all the more enjoyable and all the more difficult to ignore. But at the same time, it makes everything so despairingly painful and awful. Whatever I said caused my mouth to fill with the rotten taste, hence why I made no response.

The cards in my hand seem to speak against me. I don't think I could bluff my way out of this one. I was always a terrible liar.

But then some just called it paranoia.

Snap, crackle, pop.

I felt my legs move forward, beyond my control. I felt my hands reach for the door, dragging me ever closer. I knew all that was going on around me, but I dared not make any noise or say a single word. Doing so would simply bring unwanted attention to me and what I was doing.

_em devol reven uoy_

Reach for the elevator call button and watch my world go grayscale. The blacks and whites meant so much more than the reds and the blues. I could almost make out faces on the figures walking around me. Though I couldn't recognize who the people were, I could recognize that they were people and that they had faces. I felt my mind reeling as the elevator moved up and down, ready for the next passenger.

As time progressed I had noticed that, despite calling the elevator, I never clicked the button. I simply stood in the back of the elevator. In my eyes a blank, yet somehow solemn stare. One that read only as, "I am currently living." On my face, an expressionless phrase that all but screams, "What gravity?"

People come on and get off like clockwork. At exactly five minutes after the last person leaves, someone else gets on. Every fourth or fifth person brings some kind of bag on board. The person that immediately follows has a packet of cigarettes. They're also the most talkative as they either have a cell phone or they try to spark some kind of conversation.

"You look neutral," she says, putting a cigarette in her mouth and another behind her ear. My silence seems more than enough for her.

"You know, they say that violence never solves anything. But I think you and me should prove that wrong sometime," her cigarette lights almost instantly as she strikes the lighter. The elevator reaches the bottom floor, the doors open, and she steps out and turns to me. It's just now that I notice that she has the exact same look on her face that I do. But judging from the lines, she's had it for far longer. The elevators close as she blows a smoke ring towards me.

The air I feel almost calms me to the point of smiling. Almost.

"Let her go."

That voice again. The only thing that banes me but helps me find purpose in my otherwise meaningless, robot's life. It's about here that I reach out and snag a cigarette from the package of one of the new smokers in front of me. I put it in my mouth and pull my hands out of their proverbial cages long enough to tap the guy on the shoulder. He turns and hands me a lighter without so much as glancing at me.

"Keep it," says his deep, smoke gathered voice; uncaring about detail or whether or not I'm worth trusting. In his eyes I see a weathered soul that never asked for whatever its suffrage is or was but it would also never complain about its miseries.

He steps out at floor 3.

The elevator sits empty, completely voiding the original pattern. Here I stand, facing the floor I needed to go to, the spot I wanted to be. From here, all I can do is stare into the abyss.

Somehow I know the truth of my actions. What I should do, could do, need to do. And I know exactly how it will go. But something about what has just happened to me stops me.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Fall in love and watch it fall apart. A rule of epic proportions that one will always ignore without even realizing it. Ignorance, however, is not an excuse from law.

I stare at the doors in the hallway. The elevator, now filled with people, is gone. Each door leads to another tragedy, lie, painful experience, useless embodiment of all we stand for, or a bed coated in hundreds of different kinds of semen. Each one more disgusting than the last as if the passing of time has made people more putrid and defiled.

Look at the numbers and letters. Each number seems mockingly simple, counting up and down. On one side of the hallway, "A" stares at me, trying to tell me that things will be okay. On the other side, "B" mocks me and says it knows me far better than anyone or anything else.

I hear the voices of a thousand moaning women and men, all firmly planted in each other's sexual embrace. Faces coated in sweat and possibly other fluids depending on each of their different sick and twisted desires and lustful tastes. Far too concerned with getting what they've paid for versus what they could get for free. Far too concerned with useless robots versus real emotional beings.

I feel my heavy breathing catching up with me. The sweat on my forehead is leaking down my shirt, causing it to soak. If not for the coat, it would look as if I'd been out working out for an hour or two. But this dank, red and yellow hallway, now turned gray and dark gray, is far hotter than my body temperature has ever been.

A musty smell emanates from the room in front of me. The room I just so happened to be heading for. The room at the opposite end of the hall from where the elevator is. The room we were talking about in the first place.

Room 8B.

Sweat was now literally dripping off my head, teeth bared like some crazed, wild animal. Lip quivers up and down slightly, almost unnoticeably. Heavy breathing occasionally becomes growls as I put all efforts in keeping my hands in their cages.

"In there? I wouldn't bother just yet…" she says, suddenly snapping me back to reality.

The elevator stopped and never found its way to any actual specified spot. They say I stopped it when it was just me and her alone. But other than that, I can't say what exactly happened.

"I heard that there's some great dirty do going on in 8B," she continues, still smoking the cigarette, almost completely uninterested sounding. Her voice is soft but pitched in a middle range to make it sound anything but angelic.

"They just can't get enough," she says after a great pause. Her smoke fills the elevator before long, blending with mine to make a musty, game smell that tasted of copper blood. A feeling that comes over each person eventually in their lives, I think. I look around slightly, doing my part to break the silence.

"I accidentally went in there once…invited to a party or something. Wasn't really my kind of shindig…found that out after the first step into the room. The smell was worse than anything I'd ever smelled before," she explained, shifting her voice only slightly to make it sound like there's more than just cigarettes and smoke to her personality.

She's well kept in her stature, but her pale complexion screams shut-in. Like maybe she hasn't left the house in a year or ten. Her clothes are mix-matched pieces of various eras put together to make an outfit suitable for cover. Sort of. Her mini-skirt ends just below her rear and her shirt is cut just above her nipples. Her coat covered what her shirt didn't, but ended after the cleavage. Her abdomen was partially exposed, probably on purpose to keep things somewhat interesting.

"So are you always so out-spoken or am I just lucky?" she questions, a sly grin spreading across her face.

_nword ot em tfel uoy_

The buttons begin blinking, signaling all present that people on the varying floors are trying to call the elevator. But due to unknown reasons, it wasn't coming. What would normally happen is the desk man who works the nightshift comes to the elevator, pushes the button twice, forces the doors open, looks up and then down and speaks. Something like, "It's broken again. We'll have to call someone tomorrow; it's too late now."

"Listen I know we're kind of cramped in here, but there's far more room than this," comes a man's semi-agitated voice, causing me to wake up, realizing I've let my head fall onto his shoulder. Apologize a voice says but I won't. I don't need to. It's late and he knows that.

The doors open once again in the lobby, I think. It's hard to say. I've been at the bar drowning my sorrows in the hardest liquor I could really afford without buying pure alcohol. Gray scale and spinning is a bad combination. My body heat causes the elevator to stink of flesh, blood, and booze. A smell not so welcoming to newcomers. But we never see newcomers on this side of town. It's far too beaten down and low-level for them.

They just don't know what they're missing.

Patterns of people walk on and off the elevator on cue in each incident. I don't necessarily know them by name but I've seen them around and I know what they do in their time here, there, and everywhere. From that little window I can see their faces over and over again as they wander the streets with and without purpose.

A few people comment on the sleazy atmosphere of the building, mentioning quietly to someone next to them that they should've taken the stairs. Each time I open my mouth as if to speak but then just leave it hanging there limply with nothing to say or do. Eventually I close it because the taste of each person's stench is awful but I always find myself opening it again later.

"Stop fooling around and go in there."

The voice commands me, beckons me as only it ever can and in doing so, I find myself standing once more in the back of the elevator. Staring blankly at the people passing by.

People as it were.

I move, for once in this whole moment's moment I've stood here, nothing to do or say to or with the other passengers. Shift over to one side and quietly, as if I'm hiding my tracks, push the button. Up it goes, in an almost never-ending climb. Higher and higher it goes, lower and lower goes my mood. Step back to the center, now taking up the entirety of the elevator. To all who attempt a ride, I gruffly shove my arms out at all sides, contorting my entire body with them. What my face does, I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it's enough to make everyone take a step back and let it go this time around.

My stop comes up, and I step out shaking and twitching the whole way. Flash.

Take three steps forward, turn left. Flash.

Walk forward, turns to running. Flash.

Long hallway. Flash.

Knives, guns, drugs, and sex. This is what I see, with each passing step. This is what I smell, hear, taste, feel. All happening at once as if to overload my senses. And here I come to the door to my own little room. I reach in my pocket and pull out the key. I don't actually recall picking it up from the clerk, but I don't actually remember dropping it off either.

Click, clank, click.

Click, chink, boom.

One twist, two twist, pull, three twist, push.

"Not my kind of place, really…" she repeats somewhat distracted by the people passing us by in the park, "…too suspicious of what goes on around them, but at the same time, far too paranoid to think straight."

"Your logic confuses me…" I reply wrapping one arm around her. She leans in a little closer, lighting another cigarette and taking a single puff. She puts it in my mouth to which I respond by breathing in heavily and sighing out a great cloud of tar-smoke. I almost hear the smile that spreads across her face.

"Who're you after, anyway?" I question, simply, curious. I look down at her almost expecting her to look back.

"Are you really interested or are you just sparking small talk?" she retorts, sounding almost offended. I shake my head softly and watch a couple pass us by. The man is fairly old looking, maybe in his sixties, late. The woman looks more like she's in her mid to late forties. Both seem quite content to their position. Much like I am…here, now.

There's a shuffling and she sits up and reaches in a pocket, cigarette poking out of her mouth. "Here they are," she says, suddenly without emotion like before. She pulls a picture out of her pocket and hands it to me. One glance and I can make out a man and a woman.

"…What do you have planned?" I ask, handing the picture back. I'm not actually interested in why she wants them, whatever she wants out of them. Knowing them helps find them.

"You know, I'm not sure," she answers, exasperated over the situation. She lets out a smoke ring and lays in a very seductive pose on the bench, back of her head on my lap. I look at her and then let my eyes wander around the park. Thoughts reel around my mind over what can and can't be done easily in this city.

The police aren't dumb here. Not like in most cities. They actually tend to work 'round the clock to find criminals of any kind. There're also usually a lot of them nearby at any given time. Makes any fun one might want to have difficult to hide. But this won't stop us tonight. I'm pretty sure these people live in a downtown place. The one area of the city the police won't dare to enter. It's too much for even the trained and tainted.

Mull thoughts around my head and look down at her. "They live downtown?" I ask, raising my right eyebrow. A pause, followed shortly by a nod. Smiles are exchanged and a snide remark is made about something poking her in the back of her head.

"Come on, babe. We'll go fuck in their blood."

The elevator is nothing special here. It's brown all over the place. There's a wooden bar that runs around the whole of the interior that can be used to lean on if necessary. Any other uses are for the lame and useless at this point in their lives. A fate that even they know, and wish they didn't have to accept. The buttons are hidden behind hard plastic coverings that are cracked. One of them looks as if someone put a bullet through it. At this point, though, it's impossible to tell.

Doors open, doors close, as is expected from an elevator. Doors on this elevator, however, open and close a second or two later than any other in the whole city. Don't ask how I know said information, as it's something everyone in the city knows. People who don't even live downtown know said tip. Still it moves on as if normal, ever moving, never changing.

This elevator, like this night, however, is anything but normal.

Far from it.

I push the door open and step into the room. The noises I hear, the smells that emanate, the tastes that fill my mouth, the sights I see. The only thing I know for certain is what I can feel. Inner linings of my pockets feel matted from all the sweating I've done up to this point. Here the heat is so intense that it just doubles. I look around at faces; all people who seem, above all, oblivious to me and my entrance.

The bed is neatly done, cleaned and shaded a perfect purple. Light but not too light. The carpet is reddish, the walls are white with orange trim. A contrast, so to speak, that fades each color from one to another. Doors stand out as the same brown as the interior wood-like color of the elevator. The one and only thing tenants were not allowed to mess with. This room, as I recall, held some of the best parties, some of the best get-togethers. For its size it could hold so many people. So many people.

All of them nothing more than ghosts in my memory in comparison to the ones I'm aiming for. The people that need to die. Now there's a challenge. Sniveling cowardice. Painful existence, ending with a cold, hard, blast of lead. That's what I'm here for. Death. Death in a brown leather trench coat.

As the room starts spinning so too does my head, just in time to feel the fury of horses with gun-toting men riding through me, taking with them my soul and cares. "This is your life flashing before your eyes," screams the radio, playing music I've heard in my nightmares. From here, I know what to do and that's what matters.

Three steps forward, two people get up and grab me, like zombies trying to eat my brains. Turn twice. Once to aim and once to find my real targets. The man and woman drop, lifeless and blood ridden, their faces now mutilated by shrapnel. Bone shrapnel.

Four more stand, keeping their distance. All women. One of them could pass for a man. Her soulless face not reflecting her sex-ridden lusts but instead, a look of fear. The other three women leap for me. Dogs bounding for prey.

One spin, three shots.

Two down, one left merely collapsed and bleeding.

Aim, love the trigger. Man-woman's face explodes in a gout of brains, blood, and eyeball jelly. The combination for a sickening soup of flesh for cannibals. Limp body drops to the ground and twitches uncontrollably for a few seconds. Collapsed woman screams at the sight, but makes no motion to turn away or leave.

My sudden wandering brings me back to that bed. Cleanly made, neatly sheeted. But under its sheets lie my targets. The one's who helped shape my early life. The one's who would know more about me than I do at times when it was most convenient for them. Not that it really matters anymore.

"So Miles…" she started, looking up to me from my erection, "…have you ever done this sort of thing before?" Grin at her putting my hands into my pockets.

"That all depends on what you're talking about…" my response is cold and full of possible meanings, but unrevealing of what exactly I really mean. I get a soft, little smile as she takes me back into her throat. Her hands caress me all over as I run mine through her hair. Soft tongue to thick rod, a feeling I've not felt for at least a few years.

"Well, how about what we're doing now," she coos, swallowing my juices as if she were drinking purified water. Grin leaves me for a bit as I look up to the ceiling.

"It's definitely been a while since oral was involved…I've had a couple of hookers keep me company once or twice every month save for last month," I explained, my voice quivering a bit. Soft, warm tongue makes its way up my body to my face and we make out in a pool of passion and lust. "But I've not done _this_ for quite some time…" Soft moan from her as she lightly nips my neck.

"Sounds like you're overdo…feels kind of like it too."

Smiles are passed between us as she gets ready for the ride. One tunnel of love coming up.

Her moans fill the room as we play our lustful game, jumping between every position we can possibly think of. Hard bites are exchanged, some close to breaking skin. Tastes and feelings cause us to make noises neither of us has made for some time. Though she's not told me much of herself, I can read her like a book, by the way she does what she does and how she acts about it. She needs this. We need this.

_I_ need this.

Open eyes, look around. My bed is still messy. And this simply won't do. I fix the sheets and make sure it's made cleanly and neatly. From here I stand and head for the door. It's where I need to be going. At this point, I'm not sure what I'll do with the day, but I know that when I come back, things will be as they've been for years.

And now here I stand, still staring.

_meht llik_

My room stares down on this city, like God would his children on judgment day. It's kind of intimidating in that perspective. At the same time, it's my room.

Here I stand, looking down at my targets. One hand cuffed away in its straight jacket. The other is out, waving a gun around. I'm not even sure, anymore, where I got the gun but I'm pretty sure it was a recently purchased item. Something I got for this moment only.

Two pairs of eyes look up at me. One pair widens. The other lowers, perfectly matched by the smile below it. Gun points at the fearful eyes as the smiling face gets up and moves over next to me. "What the fuck is going on here!?" he cries, scooting back as far as he can, "Miles! What are you doing!?"

I open my mouth to reply but all I get is a wisp of air that comes out like a harsh banshee scream. But it's not my voice making the noise. It's the girl behind me who's just entered the room, just in time for the show. That's really all that matters, I think. The show.

Roar deeply as I love the trigger some more. A gimmicky device clicks and bullets fire. Repeatedly, holes explode into his face. Eyes slip into the way of the bullets, popping like water balloons filled with blood, pus, and semen. The gaping chasms are almost see through for quick moments. The blood drools from his face and chest all over my sheets. Much to my chagrin.

Turn to the new girl who's just entered the room. Reload the gun and put into my straight jacket. Pull my other hand out, clutching only a lighter. And like a flash, the world passes by me. Four steps, to her, punch her hard. Feel her nose break under the force of my fist. Straddle over her and let my hand go at it. Flesh rips and tears away as I continually attempt to force my bare hand through her bones.

When I've finished, the skin on my knuckles is starting to tear due to excess stress. Her teeth are broken, her nose is barely hanging onto her face, her cheeks are black and bloody, swollen from the hits. One side of her face looks like it's caved in from the impact. From here, I turn my lighter on.

Stand, step back two steps. I bend down and light her dress on fire.

"Here Miles, this should help things along," she says, handing me a can hair of spray and stepping back, smiling at me. I smile and lean down, spraying it at the girl's lit dress. A long stream of fire now fills my vision.

"What are you doing!?" she screams as I turn to her. My smile becomes an evil grin as I pin her against the wall with my left hand.

"I always suspected you were doing it…you should've learned by now that I'm very possessive. No one but me is allowed to have you…but seeing as I can't…then I'll just have to remedy that problem…"

The voice almost speaks for me as I bring my new torch to my target and slowly make my way up her legs. As the fire burns through her flesh, nerves, and muscles, she screams wildly trying to move out of my grip. But she can't do anything. She's too busy flailing and screaming that she won't even try to push me off of her with her arms. As the flame reaches my hand I grin and burn through it, leaving charred remnants of a limb in place of my actual arm.

"Trick or treat, Amy…" I say as the fire moves over her face and her screams eventually turn to burning wines of sizzling flesh and boiling blood. My hand releases her and I watch the charred corpse hit the floor, lifeless as nature intended. I turn to the woman on the floor and proceed to burn her as well. In the process the carpet sparks and begins burning around us, setting the whole room ablaze in only a span of a few minutes.

And with that, I stand and laugh maniacally.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"Wh-…I'm sorry, where am I?"

"You're in the hospital."

"…Why?"

"You were the sole survivor of a terrible accident, Mr. Prower. Your apartment caught fire while you and several other people were in it."

"…Who all was in it?"

"We…can't identify anyone but you, sir. Everyone else is burned beyond recognition."

"…Everyone?"

"Yes, sir."

"How many people were in that room."

"We counted about twenty."

"…I remember there being twenty-two…"

"…"

"What sparked the fire?"

"We're not sure, sir. The whole apartment building caught because the landlord forgot to turn the gas off in his room. We assume it may have had something to do with that."

"…You know…come to think of it…I _did_ smell rotten eggs…"

"What were you and so many people doing in that room?"

"We were having a party."

"Is it possible that someone at the party did it?"

"Well someone had to have started the fire, so I'm assuming so."

"Hmmm…well, we have the landlord on trial for negligence."

"Anyone else get hurt in the fire?"

"Only those in your room, Mr. Prower. That's where it started."

"Alright…thank you."

Once he leaves, I lay down and stare at the ceiling. "This has been the best Halloween of my life," I say, a small smile creeping across my face as I drift into sleep.

_Sonic, Tails, and Amy are all ©_ (_copyrighted) Service and Games (SEGA)_

_Written by Gogehenks/Norick Madcaskae_

_Lyrics taken from the song Silent Film by Dog Fashion Disco_

"_Noir: black; noting the black numbers in roulette."_


End file.
